preserved in an humble Franciscan convent in Youghal in 1490; and Dr. Reeves, in his Essay on the Culdees, gives us a short notice of another Irish library in the twelfth century, in which the Gospels and copies of other portions of the Sacred Scripture hold their usual place (_Transact. of R. I. A._, Dublin, 1864, pag. 249). Even during the sad era of the desolation of our island, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, the labours of Irishmen on the continent in illustrating the sacred text, won for them a distinguished fame; whilst the testimonies collected by Boerner (_Le Long_, ii. 369) further prove that at home a version of the Sacred Scripture into the Irish language was achieved long before the so called Reformation, being generally attributed to Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in 1360. We must be pardoned, if, as we fear, we dwelt too long on the venerable monuments of our early Church. England next claims our attention. Forty years ago a member of its Established Church did not hesitate to write that during the Catholic ages, "the Bible was a sealed Book ... there is good reason for believing that the great mass of men never heard that such a book was in existence" (Soames' _Hist. of Reformation in England_). Yet surely it was not so in the ages of Bede and Alcuin. The holy Caedmon presented to his contemporaries an Anglo-Saxon metrical paraphrase of the Bible, a portion of which we have seen translated into English and re-issued from the press in our own days. Fragments of many other Anglo-Saxon versions have also been preserved, some of which bear the classic names of _Bede_, _Athelstan_, _Aeldred_, _Aelfric_, and King Alfred. The publication of these works has long engaged the attention of our antiquarians, from the early edition by Marshall, in 1665, to that of Dr. Thorpe, in 1842. After the Norman Conquest, French and Latin were for three centuries the literary languages of England; no sooner, however, was the English language formed, than we find it employed in presenting to the faithful the teaching of the inspired volume. An old MS. in the Imperial Library of Vienna commemorates an exposition of the Gospels in the writer's possession, "in vetustissimo Anglico, quod vix aliquis hominum jam viventium sufficienter intelligeret" (_Appendix A to Record Commission Report_, pag. 232). Usher in his day referred the first English version to the year 1290. Trevisa, who died before 1360, also translated "Biblia Sacra in vernaculam", as Anthony Wood informs us (_Antiq. Oxon._, ii. 95). It was only some years later that Wicleff's version appeared; and though some English writers refer it to 1367, the German Rationalist, Reuss, marks its date as 1380 (_Die Gesch. der Heilig. Schriften_, Brunswick, 1853). For an interesting and detailed account of the more recent Catholic translations in English, we must refer to the learned _General Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures_ (Dublin, 1852) by our venerated Primate.